I must admit I too was overwhelmed by all of the match-adizing at first, but when i noticed those rainbow stripes... no more was needed to be read. I believe with the help of team robot, We can find these rare suspension species and introduce each one to a loving owner. Someone who will let these scarce beasts run wild and free and fast as bejesus in their natural habitat, over dirt and rocks.one forty WC at a time... one forty WC at a time, and the world will be a better place for everyone! mostly downhillers.

February 25, 2010 8:47 PM

Speaking of people who read our blog, do you realize that 985 of you came to the site in the past month? That's crazy.

It works whether the other person has been saying something funny, or sad, or infuriating, or boring....Them: 'my girlfriend dumped me last night'You (thirsty, not paying attention): 'oh man, that's crazy'

Them: 'I won 500 bucks at craps last weekend'You (hungry, daydreaming about a tasty sandwich, not listening): 'wow, that's crazy'

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Did you realize that there is a place on this website for comments? I mean, I guess I saw the "comments" part of the page, but I never realized that anyone would use it. Today as I was looking at the miserable excuse for a website that we call TeamRobot, I noticed that we had all sorts of comments on previous posts.

What a novel idea. Now with the click of a button the lone blogger can be connected to the people that read this stupid, self-absorbed blog. The distant but symbiotic relationship between blogger and reader is finally directly connected, and any isolation that had previously existed between the various anonymous readers and the lone writer can be finally and forever destroyed thanks to the miracle of social engineering.

But then I actually read the comments and realized that the people who write comments suck almost as bad as the people that write this stupid website.

One great example of how bad people suck is captured in the reactions that one post making fun of a nameless, faceless freerider (which by the way is the description of the half of the posts on our website). Here is the post in it's entirety:

"Everything that is wrong in the world in one picture.

Bring it up to full size to really drink this one in."

This post received lots of negative feedback. In fact, it was the recipient of more comments than any other post.

Reactions ranged from confusion to frustrastion, and even included mockery that suggested that we at Team Robot were elitist or even gay. And while I respect your right to have an opinion, you all suck.

I realize that my own comment on that picture was fairly vague, and left a lot open to interpretation. So let's get some incorrect theories out of the way.

You could potentially look at that picture and want to make fun of things like:

-Color matched anodized everything-Stupid looking/non-functional high tops shoes-Ugly tattoo featuring the British Flag (making him a Red Coat, or worse, a Loyalist)-Too-short shorts-Riding board bridges on downhill specific bikes-Eighteen (color-matched anodized) spacers under his stem, yielding the same bar height that could be achieved by sliding the bottom fork crown up by a 1/2 inch on the stanchion.

Some of you probably thought those complaints were the reason behind my rage. And some of you thought incorrectly. While making fun of people who are different is a time-honored tradition in the world of man, that was not my reason.

Please consult the mantage with any further questions that fit into the "making fun of people who are different" category, specifically ManLaw 13:

So no, I wasn't worried so much about this, or that, or that other thing. People are free to make their own decisions, even if they are kinda stupid.

My beef was more in this area:

More specifically, yeah, right there:

What you people failed to notice was the 2009 Fox 40 Limited edition World Championship fork. There were only 200 of those forks made. They might be the best downhill race forks in existence.

And it's being ridden on a freeride bike, on a ladder bridge.

While I realize that the substantially improved high-speed compression damping will really help this guy corner and brake as he is crawling at 10 mph or less on skinny little wooden stutter bumps, I feel like this fork might be happier in it's native environment; namely hauling ass at mach 10 over huge piles of rocks.

I realize that this person was supporting the sport and injecting much needed capitol into DH racing. In a small way, he might even have helped support the riding of Gee Atherton, Aaron Gwin, or even myself through his purchase. I realize that when people spend money, wisely or not, in the sport, it kinda benefits everyone.

But because I know that there are more than 200 Downhill riders in the world, maybe he could have saved that fork for, I don't know, maybe one of us?

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I'd like to thank Evil Bikes, Fox Racing Shox, Shimano, Gravity, Intense Tires and Scott USA for their support. 2010 is going to be an awesome season, I'm already having fun, and getting to work with solid companies like that has been really fun.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I'm happy to announce that I will be riding Evil Bikes in 2010. I'm going to be joining Phil Wiering and Kyle Thomas on the Evil Bikes National Team. The new bikes are sweet. I'll show off my Revolt soon, but in the meantime, here's a bikecheck of sorts on my new Faction:

It's been pretty gloomy and wet down here, so after building up my sweet new Faction I had to wait until last Friday to ride it. There was a sweet bike event going on called the Bridgetown Hustle. They had track sprints, a fixed gear best trick jam, and even a bunnyhop contest. So I figured what the hell.

About 20 or so people entered, and I wasn't sure how I would do. It was my first time on the bike, and I hadn't really bunnyhopped over anything really big in about 6 months, and never on 26 inch wheels.

Well, 6 elimination rounds later I ended up getting third to pro bmx rider Chester Blacksmith and local bmx shredder and owner of Goods BMX Shad Johnson.

But more importantly, my Evil Faction rode SWEET. I've got the extra large with the dropouts slammed, and it feels awesome. It's good to be on a bike my size, and having a little bit of BB rise allows it to hop really well. I already love that bike.

Also, my new Revolt is retarded fast. More on that later.

This has nothing to do with last Friday. But it is funny. Harry Potter for life.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Just went to the latest backyard blam! event, and it was sweet. That video is from the last backyard blam! but it gives you an idea of the event. The only difference was that the first event had around 50-75 people, and about 500 people showed up on Friday.

Art show, weird looking people on fixies, free beer, track sprint races, and a bunnyhop contest. It was pretty sweet. I got to ride this sweet new whip for the first time:

With 26's for the first time and a new bike, I was pretty surprised and stoked when I got 3rd. I think the all time high bunnyhop for the night was 36", which is retarded. Results looked like this:

Thursday, February 4, 2010

If you want to watch about 7 minutes of world class riding on the best downhill track, and you don't mind listening to some french (note the lower case spelling) funny-talk babbling, this is the movie for you:

I really like the Tonic Blog. Like us at Team Robot, Landon sometimes has trouble keeping up with the stresses of blooging. Really good write up on bloggin and why the MTB industry sucks:

Howdy Folks.

I’ve not exactly been the most prolific blogger / news updater recently. Fortunately it is not for lack of action. I’d like to exclusively blame an abundance of action, but that’s not true either.

I’ve spent the last few years vigorously updating the Tonic News, and usually I’ve done so with genuine enthusiasm. It’s also taken loads of time. Blame my editorial process, and flimsy grasp on technology as main time sucks.

Recently, I’ve had a hard time mining the inspiration for this blog. Can’t say much bike related material has held much interest at all. The bike industry is fairly simple circus. Somebody either won a race, did a cool trick or is getting paid to blow their horn about a “new” product. On this note, the weirdest one for me are the corporate dudes at Interbike who refer to products with out a definite article. They’ll say something like, “Boxxer is strong and light” rather than THE Boxxer is strong and light. When did the bike industry get a pass on the word “the”?

And how many times do I have to hear about a bike being capable a “day at Whistler, and a 35 mile epic the next.” Isn’t the real question…Am I? Believe me, if that was my riding schedule, the bike would be about item 5 on my Top 3 Things I’m Concerned About.

The best thing about bikes remains riding them. By far. That said, good lookin’, good ridin’, well made bikes are something I get excited about.

Blah, blah, blah…

Team Robot and Tonicfab will be here tomorrow night. Be there or be... gay: